


I Was Fixed On Your Hand of Gold

by littledaybreaker



Category: Critical Role (Web Series)
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-25
Updated: 2020-10-25
Packaged: 2021-03-09 06:28:39
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,348
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27189340
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/littledaybreaker/pseuds/littledaybreaker
Summary: Wherein Keyleth and Vex share a dream, a day, and a brand new beginning.
Relationships: Keyleth/Vax'ildan (Critical Role)
Kudos: 22





	I Was Fixed On Your Hand of Gold

**Author's Note:**

> I'm always terribly nervous to post work for a fandom I've never posted in before. This doesn't follow any strict timeline or anything, it sort of vaguely exists in the post-retirement space, idk, suspension of disbelief? Please be gentle in comments (or I mean, you don't have to I guess). 
> 
> I actually wrote two versions of this, plus an epilogue to this version. I'm not sure if I will post the other version--in it, the Raven Queen takes the baby, so to speak. I may post the epilogue though. 
> 
> One tiny mention of a character being sick, as a warning.
> 
> As a side note, I intentionally left the babies unnamed because it felt unavoidable to give them sentimental names and I kind of hate that? I didn't even name them in the epilogue. feel free to name them in the comments.

In her dream, Keyleth was with Vax in a small rowboat on a stormy, never-ending ocean. Every time the boat rocked, her stomach gripped, tightened, threatened to riot. But Vax held her, his hands on her shoulders, strong and unyielding. “I’ve got you,” he promised. “You’re safe.” But as water sloshed up into the vote, she turned to bury her face in his chest, and when she looked up, it was the face of a raven, and his beak was dripping blood. She screamed, and then woke up.

She was alone, of course, in her bed in her cottage down the hill from Whitestone, and her sheets were soaked, her belly--round, so swollen now she could not see over it--clenching and loosening with something entirely removed from the fear.

She was calm as she rose, calm as she found her leather-soled slippers and the small bag she’d packed some weeks before. Calm as she padded out of the cottage and into the steely gray early morning cold. Calm, even, as she made her way up the hill, the pain in her abdomen real and searing. She was calm until she entered through the doors of the castle and found--to no great surprise--Vex waiting for her. “It’s time,” she said, and dropped her bag and began to cry.

While Keyleth was still in the depths of her slumber, Vex had awoken in the castle from a nightmare of her own, a nightmare in which Keyleth had given birth to the baby on the steps of the castle, but he wasn’t a baby at all. He was a raven, a horrible, awful raven, his feathers damp with blood, the terrible bleating noise he made neither avian nor human. “It’s time,” she’d told Percy, and then went downstairs to wait. 

Now, she held Keyleth a moment, rubbing her back, waiting for her breathing to calm. The midwife she’d summoned--the one who had helped deliver Vesper only a few months before--followed behind her with Keyleth’s bag as Vex led her into the room she’d prepared earlier in the week. She and Percy had invited--more like insisted, really--her to stay in the castle, especially when her condition had become more apparent. But she liked her cottage, she’d explained. She liked her little garden, liked the sound of the river and besides, she didn’t want to be a bother to them. So she’d stayed in the cottage, making trips up the hill or inviting Vex and Percy down it often. The bedroom Vex had made up then had stayed sealed off, waiting and expectant. Until now. 

The midwife got Keyleth settled into the bed, fussed over getting her into a clean nightgown and braiding her hair and checking her over. “Not quite halfway there,” she informed her--while Vex stood in the doorway, hovering, useless, feeling as though she was invisible (this only furthered by a kitchen staff member undoubtedly summoned by Percy pushing past her to give Keyleth a cup of tea. “Kiki,” she said after a moment, and Keyleth looked up, startled by the nickname or perhaps the tone of Vex’s voice. “Yes?”

“What can I do for you?”

There was a long silence. “Will you stay with me?”

For a moment, Vex glanced over her shoulder and into the hallway. When she’d come down, Vesper had been asleep in the cradle in her and Percy’s bedroom, but it wouldn’t be long before she was stirring. Percy always had so much work to do and Vex never liked leaving her with the staff. This was different, though, she knew. And so as the kitchen staff was leaving, Vex murmured in her ear to send a nanny up to Vesper before dismissing her, taking a seat next to the bed. Keyleth’s eyes were shiny with gratitude and Vex reached out to take her hand. 

“Thank you,” Keyleth said softly, and although it was hard, Vex managed to meet her eyes, giving the hand a small squeeze. 

“It’s nothing,” she promised. “I wouldn’t dream of leaving you here alone.”

Things progressed slowly, as they often did the first time around. And as Keyleth, relaxed from the tea and undoubtedly the simple knowledge of not being alone, dozed between contractions, Vex allowed her mind to wander back to when they’d found out Keyleth was pregnant--or at least, when she and the rest of the group had. At that time Keyleth was already far enough along that her belly was round under her dress, but she hadn’t said a word. At the time Vex---who had just given birth to Vesper a few weeks before--had made a sarcastic remark to Percy reflecting on whether or not Keyleth even knew what caused that, fairly certain that if she was asked, she’d say the stork brought babies. It wasn’t a fair assessment, of course. Keyleth had proven herself to be more than capable--as a leader and as a person--and as much as Vex preferred to think about her brother and his girlfriend doing nothing more than holding hands, she knew it was ridiculous to think that. Still, when she’d cornered Keyleth in a quiet moment and asked her, Keyleth had simply fixed her big eyes on her, ran a hand over her belly, and smiled a little, explaining that she hadn’t wanted to divert any of the attention away from Vex or Vesper, which--although probably true--still provoked an eyebrow raise out of Vex. "Did Vax know?" she had asked--well, demanded, really. Keyleth had refused to answer, and although Vex supposed it was fair, it had been a point of private contention since. 

Nonetheless, Percy had built the cottage at the bottom of the hill and Keyleth had moved in, and as they settled into the rhythms of their strange new normal Vex had begun to look forward to the baby, the last little piece of Vax she had. 

The truth that Keyleth had no interest in sharing was that Vax hadn't known--had gone to his queen's side when it was still too early to know. But in her heart these nine months, she'd carried with her a secret hope that he somehow had, that somehow this baby had been a secret parting gift only he'd known about, a part of him to carry with her always. Maybe it was simply wishful thinking, a way to make it easier to accept, but as far as she was concerned, wishful thinking had carried her a long way without hurting anyone--what was a bit further?

She awoke suddenly from a dream she couldn't quite recall, a wave of pain so intense it paralyzed her washing over her body. She turned her head to face Vex, trying to sit up, frantic. "I have to go, I have to--" She stopped, another contraction hitting her just as she swung her legs over the side of the bed. "Vex, make it  _ stop."  _

Vex couldn't help chuckling--she had been there herself, just a few short months ago, begging Percy to either make it stop or just to kill her, let her die because she couldn't do it anymore--and she affectionately brushed a lock of hair from Keyleth's forehead. "I'll get you the nurse, darling," she promised. "It'll help to get into a warm bath, shall I draw you one?" but the wild panic in Keyleth's eyes suggested she'd slept til the hardest part, suggested that it might be too late for a bath even if she hadn't begun to weep, shaking her head. "I don't want a ba-a-ath," she sobbed, breath hitching, and Vex was smart enough to grab the basin on her way out the door to summon the nurse, because no sooner was it in Keyleth's hands than she was heaving into it. "I want it to stop, I need Va-a-aaaaax." 

"The nurse is coming, darling," Vex said, and she hoped her voice sounded reassuring and was bereft the tired edge it often had when Keyleth talked about Vax. She knew it wasn't fair, especially now. She couldn't imagine what it would have been like to have given birth without Percy, couldn't imagine the fear and emptiness Keyleth was feeling. She pushed all her own feelings aside, let herself become Vax, just for a moment. Do what he would do--make him proud. She knelt before Keyleth, took her hands. "I know," she said gently, in a low voice that was similar enough to her brother's own that it quelled Keyleth's wailing, quieted it to small hitched-breathed sobs. "I know you do, darling girl, but I'm here now, and I'm not going to leave you. We're going to do this together, do you understand me?" Keyleth nodded. "Breathe with me," Vex instructed, slowing her own breathing, forcing Keyleth to make eye contact, watching her til their breathing matched. While Keyleth was distracted with that, Vex took a moment to peek under her nightgown, and was somewhat surprised to see the beginnings of a shock of dark hair crowning there. Where the  _ fuck  _ was that nurse? "Keeks," she said, hoping her voice sounded calm. "Keeks, your baby is coming right now, okay? So I need you to keep thinking about your breathing but I need you to push for me, okay? I'm here. I'm going to reach under and get his head, okay?" 

The wild expression of panic was back in Keyleth's eyes, but she somehow did what she was told, and the nurse finally made her way back into the room in time to watch Vex catch her newborn nephew in her hands. He stared up at her for a long moment, as though with a great deal of understanding, and then began to cry for his mother. 

"You did so well!" Vex's voice was triumphant, awestruck, and she placed the baby against Keyleth's breast. "Kiki, you were amazing, Vax would be so prou--Keyleth?" because the look of wild panic was still on Keyleth's face, the fact that she had a healthy baby in her arms barely seeming to register. 

"I need to push again," Keyleth said urgently. "Vex, take him, I need, oh, Gods--" 

"It's just the placenta, Kiki, darling, it's okay, it's just a lit--oh!" because Keyleth was frantically shoving Vex between her legs again as she pushed, and Vex barely had time to register what was happening before her newborn niece was sliding out, arms flailing wildly, searching for the brother who had been protecting her all that time in the womb, hiding her from the world. "I'm going to name her Vex," Keyleth said, dizzily, and then proceeded to pass out. 

She awoke a few hours later, the last warm orange threads of evening sun shining in through the window, illuminating the copper threads that shone in the twin dark heads of her twin infants, both swaddled tightly and sleeping in a basket near the bed, identifiable as different only by the bow someone had stuck to the crown of the girl's head. 

The sheets were clean and so was her nightgown, but the slightest movement felt monumental, and Keyleth must have cried out softly, because it awoke Vex, who had fallen asleep in the chair nearby, and she smiled. "Oh, you're awake." She straightened, all business. "How are you feeling?"

Keyleth considered. "Pain," she said, a little weakly. She spotted a glass of water next to the bed and reached for it, drinking it gratefully. Vex rose, coming to fuss over her and then the babies. "Do you want to hold them?" she asked, not quite meeting Keyleth's eyes. 

Keyleth considered. "Maybe one at a time," she decided, and Vex smiled. The boy was stirring, so she handed him to his mother, and she took him, studying him, stroking his velvety cheek with one finger. 

It wasn't until the baby was on Keyleth's breast and latched that Vex finally spoke, perched carefully on the edge of the bed. "After they are born, you lost a lot of blood," she began, carefully. "I tried to do a healing spell, and so did the midwife, but in the end…" 

Keyleth looked up from the baby's head. "In the end?"

"...the midwife had to take your uterus out, to stop the bleeding. So if you were to remarry--"

"I'm not going to remarry."

"Keeks."

There were tears shining in Keyleth's eyes. "I'm not. the only children I wanted were your brother's. I dreamed about it, anyway." 

The little girl was fussing now, and Vex picked her up to rock her while Keyleth finished nursing her brother. "You did?" 

Keyleth patted her son's bottom, handed him to Vex, and Vex handed her her daughter. "I did." Vex averted her eyes while the baby latched. "Tell me."

"When I was pregnant." Keyleth stroked the little girl's hair, smiled down at her. "I dreamed I had a little boy and then a little girl, and they both had Vax's eyes and smiles. I just thought…" tears rolled down her cheeks, and she twisted the baby's hair around her fingers. "I thought it meant he was going to come home to me. But before they were born, I had a dream that the Raven Queen was taking something from me."

Vex nearly dropped her nephew in surprise. "I did, too," she said after a moment. "I didn't know what it meant."

Keyleth was quiet then, for long enough that Vex thought perhaps she had fallen asleep. "I don't know what that means," she said quietly, "that we had the same dream."

Gingerly, Vex returned the baby to the basket and crawled up onto the bed with Keyleth. "I think it means we're family now," she decided, "And we're going to take care of each other." 

"Oh." Keyleth laughed, patted the baby girl's bum, and set her in the basket so she could wrap her arms around Vex. "I already knew that, Vex. We became family the moment we met." 

But the time Vex had even begun to form an answer, Keyleth was asleep again. 


End file.
